Post mortem: KIN’s tragic demise (and the fading of Danger)

The KIN was a good idea—18 months ago. Ars takes an in-depth look at why the …

The now-dead KIN was not a bad idea (read our hands-on with the platform). Microsoft's ambitions with the KIN were sound. As much as the iPhone and, lately, Android handsets garner all the press attention, smartphones represent only a minority of phone sales—a growing minority, but a minority all the same. There are many, many people who don't have a smartphone, and don't even particularly want one, and they easily outnumber smartphone users.

Redmond wanted to be a part of this broader market. The company was already a big player in the smartphone market with Windows Mobile; the KIN was a product of its ambitions beyond that space. So rather than starting from scratch, in 2008 Microsoft bought Danger, the company behind the T-Mobile Sidekick line.

The choice made sense. Danger's products were not just phones; they included an online component, too. Sidekick users had their contacts, calendars, e-mails, and photos all stored online, and the handsets all included instant messaging. This combination of (phone) software plus online services clearly resonated with Microsoft. Sidekicks weren't smartphones, but their online tie-ins meant they were also more than "dumbphones."

Danger's products also showed real focus. The Sidekicks were aimed at teenagers and young adults, and the hardware reflected this. SMS and instant messaging are particularly important to this demographic, because talking on the phone makes it hard to multitask—taking a phone call when you're just chillaxin' with your friends can be annoying. Danger threw in cameras, of course, because a phone is how you take pictures these days. And the hardware was all fairly robust.

KIN was supposed to be the spiritual successor to the Sidekick. Similar target market, similar emphasis on SMS and instant messaging, but bolstered with better hardware, even richer online integration, and support for the all-important Facebook. Even the hardware styling was not a million miles away from that of the Sidekicks, though the novel rotating screen was replaced with a more conventional slide mechanism. The Sidekick was popular, so shouldn't its successor have flourished?

Pricing problems

Well, we know now that it didn't. After rumors of sales numbering only a few hundred, it looks like the true figure is just a few thousand. More than 500, certainly, but below 10,000. That's pretty astonishingly lackluster.

KIN, like the Sidekick before it, was a device aimed at teenagers and young adults. It should have been cheap to buy and cheap to operate. But it wasn't. The pricing was, frankly, nuts: $150 for the KIN ONE or $200 for the KIN TWO (albeit with a $100 mail-in rebate available for both) along with call plans that started at $60/month. From day one, it didn't stand a chance. Though the hardware prices were slashed, the plans remained prohibitively expensive.

Verizon, for its part, did little to promote the device. Microsoft ran extensive advertisements for the product, but Verizon left the devices to languish in dark corners at the back of its many stores. In-store promotion is important—as Google learned with the Nexus One—but the KIN never received much of it.

The fundamental reason for these delays, the source claims, was a problem that is all too familiar in the software industry: Not Invented Here syndrome.

The switch to Verizon also meant that Microsoft lost the Sidekick branding. Though the handsets were generally known as Sidekicks, they are, properly, called Hiptops; that's what Danger called them. T-Mobile, the biggest seller of Danger's devices, branded them as Sidekicks, and that's the name that stuck. The value of the pre-existing Sidekick userbase was wiped out by the move to Verizon, and though there were benefits (Verizon's network is more extensive than T-Mobile's), abandoning existing users and strong branding was a high price to pay.

KIN's software also had flaws. The biggest omission was probably calendar syncing; Sidekick had it, KIN didn't. A software update has been promised, but in light of the product's cancellation, it's not clear that it will actually materialize. Opinions on the phone software varied—consensus seems to be that it was overall pretty mediocre; not horrifically bad, but not particularly good, either.

The KIN did have one consistently well-received part: KIN Studio. KIN Studio provided a central place for managing all the pictures and videos that KIN users produced, providing easy and effective dissemination of that information into social networking sites.

Infighting and outfighting

On the face of it, it's astonishing that Verizon would treat the product this way. The pricing model meant that the product would never stand a chance; the lack of promotion crippled it yet further. This is a strange thing to do for an exclusive product with a successful predecessor, especially when Microsoft was willing to do so much promotion of its own.

A source speaking to Engadget gives some indication of why Verizon acted this way. The mobile operator was allegedly set to give KIN attractive pricing for both handsets and plans—pricing them in reach of its target audience—but Microsoft couldn't get the hardware finished in time.

The fundamental reason for these delays, the source claims, was a problem that is all too familiar in the software industry: Not Invented Here syndrome. Danger's phone software was Java-based, but rather than continuing to build on this codebase—a codebase that was already driving a range of successful products—the "strategic" decision was made to scrap everything and build on Windows CE instead.

This decision, it is claimed, set the project back by some 18 months. Verizon lost patience with Microsoft, and so dropped its teenage-friendly pricing structure in favor of the smartphone-level costs we see now.

Part of the delay may have stemmed from internal Microsoft turf battles. There are allegations of chronic infighting between the Windows Phone and KIN management. Comments on the (in)famous Mini Microsoft blog point at a remarkable level of bad blood between the groups. Mini Microsoft, a blog written by an anonymous Microsoft insider wishing to make the company leaner and more efficient, with a strong direction, attracts many anonymous comments from Microsoft employees past and present.

Though the authenticity is always something to be concerned about with such blogs, the comments, if accurate, paint a startling picture, and one is worth quoting at length:

Glad you named KIN, as I used to work there until few months ago. KIN was a great and ambitious project...until May 2009. The business, marketing, design vision was just spectacular! In May 2009, Mr. Myerson, decided to kill it because it was competing with his own baby, WP7. Since WP7 was not ready (still today is by far ready!) the exec told him KIN would continue. As retaliation, he killed the support of his team to KIN project. Guess what? KIN team had to take over a lot of base code postponing all the value added apps+services. Now you get why there is lack of apps on KIN. Who will win in medium/long term? Mr Myerson obviously, that's why I decide to leave.

"Mr. Myerson" is Terry Myerson, head of Windows Phone engineering. If true, it means that not only was KIN lumbered with the overhead of targeting a brand new platform, it also didn't have access to the engineering resources that might possibly have served to make such a switch worthwhile. Instead of consolidating expertise (surely the biggest benefit to a unified operating system base), poor management meant that the effect was the exact opposite, with the KIN team having to do the work that, by rights, should have been done by the Windows Phone team.

The best part was the KIN ads on Pitchfork, with words "Windows Phone" sold like it was something to be proud of. Trying to shoehorn "Windows" into a brand other than what's perceived as what your dad uses was not going to work. It was painful. Microsoft seems to think it can just put the words Windows next to something like a Pitchfork review and it's instantly going to sound like Birthday Sex.

As soon as Verizon informed Microsoft that it would be imposing smartphone plan prices, Microsoft should have pulled the plug. It would still have wasted a lot of money but it would have been spared a PR disaster and support costs.

The whole point of a device like this is to be able to send texts and MMS, and post to Twitter and Facebook, for cheaper than a smartphone. Everyone knows the smartphone is better if you can afford it.

Fantastic article, though I'm surprised hardware design wasn't presented as a small snippet. I find some of the lynchpins to the conclusions of this article a bit suspect, such as the fact that most of it surrounds one source in Engadget and some anonymous comments. However, it does ring true and sounds completely plausible. And, in all actuality, the sheer number of comments on Mini Microsoft seem to back up Engadget's source. One thing that doesn't quite add up for me, though, is why they didn't shop the project around to other companies after Verizon became frustrated. It probably would have required some hardware changes, but still.

Hopefully this can be a lesson to other companies the dangers of NIH and office politics. Territorial infighting is inevitable, and is much worse when an opportunity to redefine a company's platform landscape arises. However, that's when senior management really needs to be paying attention. More than anything, this tells me that Ballmer just wasn't paying attention and let middle management handle it.

Microsoft should look at the KIN project and do some serious introspection on how it views itself, and its culture. As BEIGE said, it seems that if something inside Microsoft doesn't have the Windows branding slapped on it, it's a red-headed stepchild at the company. With companies like Apple and Google and even HP knocking homeruns in the space with almost every release, slip ups like this are deadly.

Gah, I thought MS had resolved a lot of this already in their product development. I guess the internal revolution that Windows and Office had in their management infrastructure didn't deploy out to the phone space. :/

The worst part is to me that could put another nail in the coffin of Windows Phone 7. Worse than that, that means there might not be a compelling mobile device with the enterprise-class features I was looking for, like SharePoint/Office integration. Let's hope they get their shit straightened out and release a usable, good smartphone OS.

What really is the problem with running a business software team based on Java? It might be 'dilution' but MS is a massive company and if - on it's own, Java-based - terms KIN had been a success then, from purely business (dollars in bank-account and marketshare) perspectives the whole thing would have been a success. MS is big enough that it can afford to have two different software bases, at least as long as each is profitable... And if it really didn't want that, it should have made that decision BEFORE dropping a half-billion on Danger... Stating the obvious, I know. I hope some heads roll in senior MS management because of this, if they haven't already.

I would personally bet another reason the KIN didn't sell well is that it is rather fugly... it copies the old iPhone styling (chrome edges, rounded corners) and a boring-ass keyboard design with nothing to distinguish it. It really looks horrible, and definitely looks cheaper than it could or should.

Gah, I thought MS had resolved a lot of this already in their product development. I guess the internal revolution that Windows and Office had in their management infrastructure didn't deploy out to the phone space. :/

The worst part is to me that could put another nail in the coffin of Windows Phone 7. Worse than that, that means there might not be a compelling mobile device with the enterprise-class features I was looking for, like SharePoint/Office integration. Let's hope they get their shit straightened out and release a usable, good smartphone OS.

It would be much nicer if either Android 3 or iOS could get full Office integration. Better yet, a completely open Office standard would be ideal -- something where you could choose between office suites and they could read and write to all of their standard formats by default.

Find a market where you can be number one or two in, then work on owning it. I see Apple, Google, and RIM all in front of them at this point. It seems to me that Phones are not it for Microsoft. My last two smart phones were Windows Mobile (Touch and Touch Pro) but I am now a happy Android user (EVO 4G).

Fantastic article, though I'm surprised hardware design wasn't presented as a small snippet. I find some of the lynchpins to the conclusions of this article a bit suspect, such as the fact that most of it surrounds one source in Engadget and some anonymous comments. However, it does ring true and sounds completely plausible. And, in all actuality, the sheer number of comments on Mini Microsoft seem to back up Engadget's source. One thing that doesn't quite add up for me, though, is why they didn't shop the project around to other companies after Verizon became frustrated. It probably would have required some hardware changes, but still.

I would suggest that the issue here is CDMA. By making a CDMA phone, MS had a choice between Verizon and Sprint. There's no real point in going CDMA unless you're going to partner with Verizon (as Verizon has arguably the best network, so makes CDMA a price worth paying for). GSM versions of the KIN were planned--for Europe--but were set to take another 4-6 months. Partnering with Sprint was, IMO, a big mistake for Palm, and I suspect MS is aware of that.

So I think MS had a choice: stick with a good network, but with bad pricing, switch to a markedly inferior network (that might not even want the phone anyway), or wait even longer for the GSM version. Given that delays were already hurting the device, just deciding to suck it down and go with Verizon does make some sense.

dal20402 is right. Microsoft should have noted the new Verizon plan price and the date of WinPhone7 launch, done the math, and cancelled or at least delayed Kin (folding the Kin Spot stuff into WinPhone7). Or at least, should have gone out and negotiated a lower hardware/plan pricing with Tmobile or some other carrier.

It's highly embarrassing for MS to launch a product, then kill it so quickly. This will have a bad effect on the first 6 months of WinPhone7 sales. Unbelievably ham-handed of Microsoft!

Finally, which ad agency handled the Kin campaign? Was it Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the folks behind the creepy Burger King ads? MS need to rethink their relationship with this agency; there's edgy and there's creepy, and I think CPB is trending toward the latter.

Fantastic article, though I'm surprised hardware design wasn't presented as a small snippet. I find some of the lynchpins to the conclusions of this article a bit suspect, such as the fact that most of it surrounds one source in Engadget and some anonymous comments. However, it does ring true and sounds completely plausible. And, in all actuality, the sheer number of comments on Mini Microsoft seem to back up Engadget's source. One thing that doesn't quite add up for me, though, is why they didn't shop the project around to other companies after Verizon became frustrated. It probably would have required some hardware changes, but still.

I would suggest that the issue here is CDMA. By making a CDMA phone, MS had a choice between Verizon and Sprint. There's no real point in going CDMA unless you're going to partner with Verizon (as Verizon has arguably the best network, so makes CDMA a price worth paying for). GSM versions of the KIN were planned--for Europe--but were set to take another 4-6 months. Partnering with Sprint was, IMO, a big mistake for Palm, and I suspect MS is aware of that.

So I think MS had a choice: stick with a good network, but with bad pricing, switch to a markedly inferior network (that might not even want the phone anyway), or wait even longer for the GSM version. Given that delays were already hurting the device, just deciding to suck it down and go with Verizon does make some sense.

Really? How would it make sense to release an essential part of your mobile phone strategy in a postion where it could do nothing but fail? While hindsight is 20/20, and nobody could have predicted how badly this would go, it was obvious that smartphone pricing for a limited featureset would never pan out. Even if sales had been lackluster on Sprint or the project was delayed by an additional 4-6 months, putting your device in a position to produce some results is better than tossing it under the bus. In the former, you may end up a winner, but in the latter you will always lose.

Looking back at the KIN, I wonder if this spells the end for midlevel phones that are geared towards social networking without providing full smart functionality. It was a market that would have created the smartphone users of tomorrow. Now, I think there is going to be a substantial market for young adults who remain feature phone buyers who completely avoid data plans altogether and rely on talk time and SMS plans. I'm already seeing the workarounds bring old ideas back in to play. A local radio station (WTOP) is advertising a call in line, where you can use that to listen to them. As long as you have the minutes to spare, why pay for data?

I think by the time MS switched the Kin's platform to Windows, they must have wanted it too fail. Imagine: WinPhone 7 will probably have at best a lackluster start: it seems to have no Unique Selling Proposition, all the closedness of the Apple platform without the ecosystem nor fashion factor, and the legendary MS 1.0 experience. I'm betting on ... not much of a success, definitely much behind Apple and Android and RIM.

Imagine the slap in the face for both the mainline Phone execs and MS in general if a relative skunkwork had enjoyed comparatively good success, thereby proving that both the Windows brand and the WinPhone tech don't have much pull.

It's very telling that MS is willing to sink more than a billion dollars just to make sure that a competing product fails... even when the product is from MS themselves.

Looking back at the KIN, I wonder if this spells the end for midlevel phones that are geared towards social networking without providing full smart functionality. It was a market that would have created the smartphone users of tomorrow. Now, I think there is going to be a substantial market for young adults who remain feature phone buyers who completely avoid data plans altogether and rely on talk time and SMS plans. I'm already seeing the workarounds bring old ideas back in to play. A local radio station (WTOP) is advertising a call in line, where you can use that to listen to them. As long as you have the minutes to spare, why pay for data?

I agree. The hardware cost is fairly negligible even for smartphones, so there's not much to gain by using a featurephone. I Paid $29 for my HD2 last week... And I'm not paying for a data plan: just a regular voice one, with a handful of texts. I do the data stuff via Wifi from home, work, or pretty much anywhere in any city. What could sell feature phones is coolness, and ease of use.

Fantastic article, though I'm surprised hardware design wasn't presented as a small snippet. I find some of the lynchpins to the conclusions of this article a bit suspect, such as the fact that most of it surrounds one source in Engadget and some anonymous comments. However, it does ring true and sounds completely plausible. And, in all actuality, the sheer number of comments on Mini Microsoft seem to back up Engadget's source. One thing that doesn't quite add up for me, though, is why they didn't shop the project around to other companies after Verizon became frustrated. It probably would have required some hardware changes, but still.

I would suggest that the issue here is CDMA. By making a CDMA phone, MS had a choice between Verizon and Sprint. There's no real point in going CDMA unless you're going to partner with Verizon (as Verizon has arguably the best network, so makes CDMA a price worth paying for). GSM versions of the KIN were planned--for Europe--but were set to take another 4-6 months. Partnering with Sprint was, IMO, a big mistake for Palm, and I suspect MS is aware of that.

So I think MS had a choice: stick with a good network, but with bad pricing, switch to a markedly inferior network (that might not even want the phone anyway), or wait even longer for the GSM version. Given that delays were already hurting the device, just deciding to suck it down and go with Verizon does make some sense.

But was T-Mo not interested in the beginning or was MS so intent on moving away from the Sidekick name that they closed the door on T-Mo?

Also, while Sprint is a distant 3rd in revenue, their network is comparable to Verizon's and their handset selection was arguably better until the android phones started showing up. As a WinMo user yourself, I'm sure you read the complaints about the lockdowns that Vz put on their phones that other carriers didn't, especially in regards to bluetooth connectivity.

I agree. The hardware cost is fairly negligible even for smartphones, so there's not much to gain by using a featurephone. I Paid $29 for my HD2 last week... And I'm not paying for a data plan: just a regular voice one, with a handful of texts. I do the data stuff via Wifi from home, work, or pretty much anywhere in any city. What could sell feature phones is coolness, and ease of use.

The HD2 is about eight months old now, so it's no wonder that the pricing is bargain basement. And I think KIN--like the Sidekick before it--needs the data plan to be useful. The instant messaging, the online syncing, the photo and video sharing: all need data.

Also, while Sprint is a distant 3rd in revenue, their network is comparable to Verizon's and their handset selection was arguably better until the android phones started showing up. As a WinMo user yourself, I'm sure you read the complaints about the lockdowns that Vz put on their phones that other carriers didn't, especially in regards to bluetooth connectivity.

Honest question: by what metric is Sprint's network comparable to VZW's? I'm a satisfied Sprint customer right now, and I plan to re-up with them once the Galaxy S is available (unless I succumb to the wiles of the Evo before then), but there are times when I really wish I was a VZW customer. VZW's coverage certainly seems much superior to Sprint's, in my experience.

I thought this was a pretty great write-up on the KIN, but honestly when I got to the part dismissing iPhone and Android apps as "mostly useless crap", I just about had to stop reading.

"Not much use to me personally" and "useless crap" are very different things.

Sounds entirely legitimate, to me. To any individual person, most of the apps are going to be useless crap. Now, the subset of apps which are useful to each person varies widely between persons, such that you might be able to say that most apps are useful to someone - but from the POV of someone evaluating a phone platform in which to invest, it certainly seems fair to say that most of the apps are useless crap.

Fantastic article, though I'm surprised hardware design wasn't presented as a small snippet. I find some of the lynchpins to the conclusions of this article a bit suspect, such as the fact that most of it surrounds one source in Engadget and some anonymous comments. However, it does ring true and sounds completely plausible. And, in all actuality, the sheer number of comments on Mini Microsoft seem to back up Engadget's source. One thing that doesn't quite add up for me, though, is why they didn't shop the project around to other companies after Verizon became frustrated. It probably would have required some hardware changes, but still.

I would suggest that the issue here is CDMA. By making a CDMA phone, MS had a choice between Verizon and Sprint. There's no real point in going CDMA unless you're going to partner with Verizon (as Verizon has arguably the best network, so makes CDMA a price worth paying for). GSM versions of the KIN were planned--for Europe--but were set to take another 4-6 months. Partnering with Sprint was, IMO, a big mistake for Palm, and I suspect MS is aware of that.

I agree. Much of it depends on when Verizon threw the curveball pricing at Microsoft. Still, once that was determined, I think it would have been a much saner bet to either go with a network that will price the device appropriately (despite WebOS' dismal performance on it) or postpone and get a GSM version in order. After the amount of money invested in both the acquisition of Danger and subsequent rewrite of its next generation OS, outright killing it very shortly after release seems to be the worst case scenario.

Of course, again, that's all assuming that any other networks would even have the device. I imagine the initial "we're-going-to-Verizon" discussion between Microsoft and T-Mobile went in the direction that left Microsoft little recourse to head back to them with its tail between its legs.

If I were any company I would never purposefully release a new phone around any big release of another phone. Verizon released a brand new blackberry right around the iPhone release. They pushed this brand new, barely around for a week new phone as buy one get one free. Not a good sign.

I thought this was an interesting concept if targeted right. I agree they should have pushed it as a great kids phone. Maybe something like an "Add a Kin to any existing Verizon account for $cheap cost and if you have an existing smartphone on the account, the data is free with the addition of an unlimited txting plan, otherwise data + unlimited txt is $X" push would have worked. Dad/Mom gets a new smartphone, they add a kin on for cheap. Everyone gets new phones and is happy.

The kin didn't need a data plan. Most of what it did could be done with a souped up sms/mms setup. Maybe add 100mb of web browsing to the package, and for $15/mo you'd have a special kin plan that would sell like hotcakes. I have to wonder if verizon is working on something for the tweenies on their own.

Has Microsoft ever released a hardware product which wasn't a complete failure? Xbox 360 has RROD, Kin is dead, they dabble in the peripheral market, but anything mass market seems like an utter failure.

I've been wondering for the longest time why Microsoft "competes" in some of the areas they do. They lost the phone game, and are now trying to get back into it. But their great white hope is a comparably limited and outdated platform (WP7) and their first step with the KIN is a total disaster.

It's the same on so many fronts. MSN Search was ultimately a failure, so Microsoft invested the time, energy, effort and gobs of money into Bing. While Bing is not a flop, it's hardly skyrocketing, and I can't see it ever bringing in enough ROI to do anything meaningful for Microsoft.

Internet Explorer, the beleaguered browser, sat stagnating for 8 years before getting an update, and it took one further update before it was remotely usable. Still, though, we're waiting for IE9 to finally bring in modern web features. Internet Explorer is perpetually one step behind the competition, primarily because it's the sole remaining propriety browser engine. Safari, Chrome, and Firefox are all based on opensource engines that receive updates quick and often, whereas it nearly takes an act of God to push out an update to Trident (Internet Explorer's engine). And what exactly is the ROI of offering their own browser? A little bit of extra search traffic from the folks that forget or don't know how to change the default search engine from Bing?

IMO, Microsoft should pull back and refocus on the things they're currently doing well at (fiscally, mind you, not necessarily in any other sense). Namely, Windows 7 Desktop and Server and Office. Throw in Xbox, as well. It's not a huge money maker but it's an embeddable product like iPods are for Apple. Everything, else should just be dumped and let to others more competent.

Also, while Sprint is a distant 3rd in revenue, their network is comparable to Verizon's and their handset selection was arguably better until the android phones started showing up. As a WinMo user yourself, I'm sure you read the complaints about the lockdowns that Vz put on their phones that other carriers didn't, especially in regards to bluetooth connectivity.

Honest question: by what metric is Sprint's network comparable to VZW's? I'm a satisfied Sprint customer right now, and I plan to re-up with them once the Galaxy S is available (unless I succumb to the wiles of the Evo before then), but there are times when I really wish I was a VZW customer. VZW's coverage certainly seems much superior to Sprint's, in my experience.

Sprint is second only to Verizon in "3g" coverage. Combined with free roaming on VZW towers it ends up pretty comparable.

Kin is a study in failure it would inevitably succeeded if not for MS. The corporate culture killed it noting more or less. MS has two cash cows so big they will rake in the cash for decades without any new products. The problem is that no one inside needs to worry about outside competition. They just need to keep from getting fired or replaced. This puts them uncomfortably close to GM Bell telaphone before the split up and some of those banks everyone loves. Innovation is the biggest risk of all. There is no reason big business can't keep reinventing them selves but you need to support it from the top and reward and punish on real world performance. No easy task for even a moderate size company.

Has Microsoft ever released a hardware product which wasn't a complete failure? Xbox 360 has RROD, Kin is dead, they dabble in the peripheral market, but anything mass market seems like an utter failure.

In my experience, Microsoft keyboards and mice are actually really well constructed. They also made the 1st actual joypad for a computer that I liked (the sidewinder I believe it was called), but that was less "mass market" I guess than what we're talking about here. Also, I don't think I'd call the Xbox 360 a failure at all. I own one and have never experienced the ring of death (yes, it was a problem when the product first launched, but they fixed the issue). I got mine in November of 2007, and I've never seen the ring.

EDIT:I feel I should also point out their failures as you have. Kin is an utter debacle. I had a Windows Mobile phone on at&t's network a while back. Audiovox was the company that made it I believe. Before that I had a Symbian phone. When I got the WinMo phone (August 2005) it felt like more of a downgrade than an upgrade. The only redeeming quality about the phone was that it was TINY. I ended up having to hold on to the thing for 2 years. Anyway, ever since that experience, I decided that I didn't like Windows Mobile at all. It might not be a fair assessment, but for me, I'm never buying another Windows Mobile phone again.

The mind boggles at the sheer degree of the incompetence of Microsoft's mobile divisions. $500 million is an enormous amount of money for anyone to squander over petty infighting.

Ballmer has got to take some of the blame for allowing a failure of this magnitude, though the recent management shake up at least lends hope that he sees what the issues are.

After all the failed product launches over the last decade attributed to internal politics, you have to wonder if Ballmer isn't part of the problem, not the solution. I can't think of a single product from MS that has significant market that wasn't introduced before 2000. What they do well, get better (if only incrementally) but all their growth plays just burn cash.